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“I was fortunate enough off the tail end of last season to have a look at the squad and work out some of the things we needed moving forward to be that little bit better,” O’Connor said.

“The guys that have come in will certainly give us a bit of the starch and a bit of the experience that we lacked at stages last year. From that perspective I think we will be a better group.”

O’Connor also believes that the return of Alex Martin to oversee the players’ strength and conditioning programme has been another significant factor.

“So things are moving in the right direction,” the Tigers boss said. “We are just about where we need to be and now it is just about making sure that we do the hard work to give ourselves every chance.”

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An injection of pace among the backs is something that fans have wanted to see for some time and the addition of Nick Malouf and Jonah Holmes out wide will assist in that direction.

Malouf has been plying his trade with Australia in sevens rugby, while Holmes brings a prolific try-scoring record from his spell with Yorkshire Carnegie, where he played alongside Joe Ford.

“It is an issue that we have got,” he said. “Thankfully it’s not a massive drama for us. When you have the speed of thought of Ben Youngs and George Ford and Matt Toomua we can probably compensate for that lack of foot speed. But it is something that is really important – you can’t stop speed.

“We have to make sure that we are as good as we can be in that place. Those boys are training really hard.

“Nick wanted to get out of the sevens game and was a good fit for us at the time and Jonah scored a load of tries last year for Yorkshire.

“There are blokes there that know their way to the try line. Hopefully we can get them the ball in a little bit of space.”